Focus: 4 years after Deepwater Horizon, science offers few answers on long-term effects

Since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion dumped millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico four years ago — starting on April 20, 2010 until the leak was finally plugged that July — teams of scientists have been working diligently to answer a question with no easy answers: How much damage did th...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — April 20 marks the fourth anniversary of an explosion on the BP-operated drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, which killed 11 workers about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast i...

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The Gulf of Mexico oil spill at a glance

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — April 20 marks the fourth anniversary of an explosion on the BP-operated drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, which killed 11 workers about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico and set off the nation's worst offshore oil disaster.

WHAT HAPPENED

The Deepwater Horizon well was drilling the night of April 20 when it was rocked by an explosion and began burning. The rig sank less than two days later and crude oil gushed into the Gulf from the blown-out Macondo well. The well's location about a mile below the Gulf surface and the pressure of oil and natural gas erupting from it severely hampered efforts to cap the well. In July 2010, a cap was successfully placed over the well after an estimated 200 million gallons of oil escaped, though that amount is one of many points that remain in dispute. The collapsed rig remains on the Gulf bottom. The spill led to a moratorium for a time on deep-water drilling in the Gulf and assurances from federal officials that offshore oil drilling regulation and monitoring would be tightened in an effort to prevent future disasters like the BP spill. Drilling has since resumed.

CLAIMS, SETTLEMENTS, DISPUTES

Two phases of a trial in U.S. District Court have been held in New Orleans and a third is schooled to begin in January, dealing with matters of fault, questions of negligence, how much oil ultimately was spewed into the Gulf — all of which will determine how much the oil giant will have to pay in penalties under the federal Clean Water Act.

Meanwhile, BP estimates that, since May 2010, it has paid out roughly $11 billion so far in claims to individuals and businesses over economic losses and damages, plus nearly $1.5 billion to government. In 2012, the company and a committee representing numerous plaintiffs agreed to a settlement resolving most economic and property damage claims. However, a court-appointed administrator's interpretation of that settlement remains in dispute. The company initially estimated the settlement would result in it paying $7.8 billion in claims. Later, as it started to challenge the business payouts, the company said it no longer could give a reliable estimate for how much the deal will cost.

CRIMINAL CASES

In 2012, BP agreed to pay $4.5 billion in a settlement with the U.S. government and to plead guilty to felony counts related to the deaths of the 11 workers and lying to Congress. The figure includes nearly $1.3 billion in criminal fines — the largest such penalty ever — along with payments to several government entities. Two BP well site leaders are charged with manslaughter, and a former executive is charged with lying to authorities.

In 2013, the Justice Department reached a $1.4 billion settlement with rig owner Transocean Ltd., requiring the Switzerland-based company to pay $1 billion in civil penalties and $400 million in criminal penalties and plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of violating the Clean Water Act.

Also in December 2013, former BP engineer Kurt Mix was convicted in federal court of obstruction of justice after prosecutors said he deleted text messages to and from a supervisor and a BP contractor to stymie a grand jury's investigation of the spill. He has motions pending before the trial judge to have the jury's verdict thrown out.

HEALTH ISSUES

BP and plaintiffs agreed in 2012 to a settlement providing oil spill cleanup workers and residents in specified areas close to the coast with payments for medical claims related to the spill. BP does not have an estimate of how much it will likely pay out. Lawyers have estimated as many as 200,000 people may benefit.

ENVIRONMENT

Oil from the busted well spread north after the blowout, eventually soiling marshes, beaches and barrier islands from Louisiana to Florida and forcing rich seafood grounds to be closed. Rescue and cleaning centers were set up for animals affected by the spill. Researchers continue to monitor marshlands, marine life and oyster beds lingering effects from the oil.

Since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion dumped millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico four years ago — starting on April 20, 2010 until the leak was finally plugged that July — teams of scientists have been working diligently to answer a question with no easy answers: How much damage did the worst offshore oil spill in the nation’s history do?

At this point, the scientific evidence appears inconclusive. Scientists researching the spill have a wide range of theories about the long-term impacts of the spill. But there’s not enough evidence at this point to back up the theories. It’s just too soon to tell by scientific standards.

The general consensus emerging from the proceedings of the 2014 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill & Ecosystem Science Conference is this: The Gulf Coast dodged a fatal bullet, but even after four years, it’s far too early to get a clear picture of the damage the oil spill has caused to marine and human ecosystems.

Scientists have been at the frontlines of the spill response, both in its immediate aftermath and in the years since. Charlie Henry of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Disaster Response Team described the immediate response to the Deepwater Horizon spill as having “more vessels than the D-Day invasion.” Given the massive scale of the spill, which imperiled more than 700 miles of coastline, the scientific armada faced an uphill battle. Some of the world’s leading scientists — including from Cape Cod’s Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the University of Rhode Island — have been monitoring the effects.

To report on the short-term and long-term effects of the oil spill and share their research findings, the nonprofit Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative has convened annual conferences in the years since the spill to bring together the academic institutions and federal agencies researching its effects. BP, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig on the hook for the costs associated with the spill, is funding $500 million over 10 years for independent studies into the oil spill’s effects.

This year’s Gulf conference met in Mobile, Ala., where scientists from across the nation presented their findings about the spill and research to better understand and address future spills. Since the academic world often speaks a very different language than the layman, the University of Rhode Island’s Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting brought in a variety of oil spill experts to explain the science in layman’s terms to a group of journalists from across the nation. Indeed, the long research timelines of the scientific world do not mix well with the media’s desire for simple soundbites providing conclusive answers.

Where did the oil go?

Page 2 of 4 - You may recall those alarming animation maps projecting the trajectory of the Deepwater Horizon oil. According to those projections, ocean currents were expected to bring the oil from the site of the explosion off the coast of Louisiana, through the Florida Straits, hitching a ride on the Gulf Stream up the East Coast and all the way out to Ireland and the Azores. “A lot of people picked up that animation,” University of Miami Oceanographer Arthur Mariano said, noting that the animation was widely distributed on the Internet and picked up by the major news networks. Despite its wide circulation, he said, “It was not close to the truth.”

So where and how did it go wrong? While that model predicted average conditions, the actual conditions in the Gulf had deviated. “Florida was very lucky,” said Mariano. So, too, was the Eastern seaboard. Thanks to a combination of factors — eddies, essentially Gulf Stream whirlpools, and ocean currents, combined with wind speed and direction — the environmental and economic Doomsday scenario did not occur. Instead, the oil was dispersed into different directions, with a large concentration in the warm waters to the southwest of the Macedo spill site off the coast of Louisiana.

What happened to 4.9 million gallons of oil? Even the answer to that question is a bit up in the air. The NOAA reports that 17 percent of the oil was recovered from the oil wellhead, 5 percent was burned, 3 percent was skimmed, 25 percent evaporated or dissolved, 16 percent was naturally dispersed and 8 percent was chemically dispersed. If those figures are correct, that means that 26 percent of the Deepwater Horizon oil — about 1.2 million gallons — remained in the water or on the shoreline.

As Temple University oceanographer Erik Cordes explained, there are 22,000 natural seeps in the Gulf. “It looks like a dripping faucet,” the deep sea explorer said of the Gulf’s natural oil seeps. Add to that the many leaking pipelines and wells from the oil-rich Gulf, and it explains the large amounts of oil normally found as sheen in the Gulf and as tarballs that wash up on its beaches.

The Deepwater Horizon spill, Cordes said, was “a giant fire hose” of light, sweet crude oil. However, the large amounts of oil normally in the Gulf may have also helped it to adapt to the contamination, minimizing harm to the ecosystem. One area of concern and further research, he said, is the effect of the oil spill on corals.

Thanks to natural processes aided by chemical dispersants, much of the oil was suspended in the warm waters as droplets, which then biodegraded or evaporated. Some oil, however, has been embedded in coastal wetlands, marshes, beaches and barrier islands from Louisiana to Florida. Wildlife was coated with oil as cleaning centers were established. Fishing areas were closed off, jeopardizing livelihoods.

Page 3 of 4 - Sometimes the chemical dispersants used to herd the oil and keep it away from the coastline can create a host of unfortunate consequences. A consortium of 22 academic institutions — including two Rhode Island universities, the University of Rhode Island and Brown University — are among those aiming to get a better understanding of dispersants and developing alternatives through interdisciplinary research. The Consortium for Molecular Engineering of Dispersant Systems funded the Metcalf seminar to help explain its work to the general public.

A team led by Agnes Kane, chair of Brown University’s Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in Providence, has been among those investigating whether nanoparticles might be a better alternative than chemical dispersants, which can prevent the spread of oil contaminants, but still contaminate the ecosystem or cause other unintended consequences.

The health of the ecosystem and Gulf Coast residents

While fragile ecosystems of the Louisiana bayou did suffer a more direct impact, the farther east, the less the impact. On the Florida panhandle, such as at Pensacola Beach, the coastline appeared to have recovered from contamination after about a year. However, according to Markus Huettel of Florida State University, sites farther west still contain oil. Those continue to be monitored.

Those Coastal communities in Alabama, Mississippi — and especially Louisiana — continue to suffer from the consequences of the BP spill. Scientific studies into the effects of the spill not only look at the environmental impacts, but the human impacts as well — both in terms of physical and mental health effects. The good news: Initial results from 1,000 Gulf Coast residents show they do not appear to have higher chemical exposure levels after the spill than other Americans. However, this finding does contrast sharply with anecdotal reports from the region.

This resilient area of the Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida is certainly not unfamiliar with natural or manmade disasters, having experienced repeated devastation from powerful hurricanes over the years, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Hurricane Isaac, in 2012, added another wrinkle to the Gulf Coast’s oil spill story, having stirred up some of the Deepwater Horizon oil and depositing it along some coastal areas and marshland.

Lynne Grattan of the University of Maryland School of Medicine has been among those studying the human effects of the spill. While these communities were experienced in coming together and helping each other in the wake of hurricanes, Grattan said that the federal Oil Pollution Act removes local control over the response. As such, local communities have little control over their fate after an oil spill. Communities can come together, volunteer and rebuild after a hurricane. With a lack of local authority, that cannot occur in the wake of an oil spill.

This, she said, “inhibits resiliency.” That dynamic led to a sense of helplessness and frustration. While many fishermen did join the cleanup effort — both to help their own communities and livelihoods recover and make up for the lost income — they were not calling the shots, and are now concerned about health impacts already being reported.

Page 4 of 4 - In an effort to empower these communities, a new model of community-based participatory research has emerged, tracking everything from the health of local seafood stocks to the health of local “fisherfolk.” As the years have passed, time has healed for the people along the Gulf Coast and their economy has also healed to an extent, with tourism bouncing back and Gulf seafood deemed safe to eat.

While the Gulf ecosystem and the communities along the coastline have been remarkably resilient in just four years time, the Gulf of Mexico and the people who live along it are by no means out of the woods. The Deepwater Horizon disaster and the long-term health effects that some Gulf Coast residents have begun to report may be just the tip of the iceberg.

A vast well of scientific research has emerged from the disaster. It’s just still too soon for science to offer any definitive answers as to the deeper, long-term impacts that may still loom over the horizon.

Aaron Frechette is the Editorial Page Editor for The Herald News. He attended the 2014 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill & Ecosystem Science Conference in Mobile, Ala., and the related seminar for journalists sponsored by the University of Rhode Island’s Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting. Email afrechette@heraldnews.com or follow him on Twitter @AaronFrechette.